Nobody ever mastered a ventilator by reading about one.
The Ventilator Book and The ICU Survival Book get you ready for the 3 a.m. question. The Ventilator Workbook gets you the practice.
All by William Owens, MD. Attending Intensivist Physician at Prisma Health Richland and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of South Carolina Floyd School of Medicine.
The Ventilator Workbook
19 modules. 7 tracks. A ventilator you cannot break, and a patient you cannot hurt.
Every module runs the same 5 phases.
3 questions before the reading.
The idea, with the answer withheld until you move the control.
Free play on the live vent. Nothing counts.
A clinical task you satisfy by moving the right control, not by picking the right letter.
5 questions, your score, every answer explained.
Plus 3 more, beyond the modules.
No task, no score, every condition unlocked. ARDS, status asthmaticus, COPD, fibrosis, a mucus plug, a massive PE, weaning. Take any of them apart.
55 topics, difficulty tiers that unlock as you go, and the questions you miss come back until they don't.
Progress by learner, down to the individual objective. Class reports, for programs that have to document competency.
7 tracks.
Foundations · Physiology · Modes · Strategy · Clinical Skills · Patient-Ventilator Dyssynchrony · Ventilator Liberation
For every clinician who touches a vent.
Have an answer when the RT asks for settings.
Order the settings. Know why they work.
For the keeper of the vent.
Know what the alarm means before you call.
Unfamiliar vent. Crashing patient. No backup.
Grade what they can do, not just what they know.
The Book
The Ventilator Book
Over 100,000 copies sold in 6 languages
The ICU's go-to reference since 2012: respiratory failure and mechanical ventilation in clear language, small enough for a jacket pocket. The 3rd edition folds in The Advanced Ventilator Book: setup, adjustments and troubleshooting, dyssynchrony, rescue therapies for ARDS, and ECMO.
The Workbook is the other half of it: the same material, with the vent in front of you.
Read the book
Also from First Draught Press
The ICU Survival Book
Critical care for residents, students, advanced practice providers and ICU nurses, in the systems-based order of rounds: hemodynamics, respiratory failure, neurocritical care, massive transfusion. Not a textbook: each section lists what you will be expected to know.
The ventilated patient is one bed in the unit. This is the rest of the round.
Read the book
About the author
William Owens, MD
William Owens, MD, is a Critical Care Medicine specialist at Prisma Health Richland, a tertiary referral center in Columbia, SC, and a Clinical Professor of Medicine with the University of South Carolina Floyd School of Medicine. He has also served on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He has served as the Director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit and as Division Chief during his career.
Dr. Owens is a 1996 graduate of The Citadel and received his medical degree in 2000 from the University of South Carolina Floyd School of Medicine. He trained in Emergency Medicine at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Baton Rouge, LA. This was followed by fellowship training in Critical Care Medicine at the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL. He is board-certified in Emergency Medicine, Critical Care Medicine, and Neurocritical Care Medicine. In addition to speaking at regional and national conferences and publishing articles in the peer-reviewed medical literature, Dr. Owens is also the primary author of textbooks related to mechanical ventilation and critical care medicine. He has published three editions of The Ventilator Book, two editions of The Advanced Ventilator Book, and created The Ventilator App. His latest project is an interactive learning curriculum for mechanical ventilation designed for medical students, residents, Advanced Practice Providers, and anyone else who cares for the critically ill. The Ventilator Workbook promises to be a step forward in medical education and is now available online.
Throughout his career, Dr. Owens has been an active clinician and educator. He enjoys training physicians, nurses, and respiratory therapists in the care of the most seriously ill and injured patients and is a firm subscriber to a holistic approach toward critical care medicine. He believes in the rational application of physiology and in always questioning our assumptions.
Dr. Owens lives in Columbia, SC, with his wife, Lorien. They have three children (William, Zach, and Amelia) who are busy carving their own paths in the world. He also lives with a St. Bernard, Juliet, who serves as a therapy dog for local hospitals, organizations and schools, and a beehive with about 60,000 bees. He enjoys woodworking, mountain biking, whitewater paddling, and going on family adventures.